When Joe Gibbs Racing signed Kyle Busch to its already volatile lineup of drivers, even Tony Stewart questioned how the personalities would mesh.

Tony Stewart said, “My first reaction was, this is going to be a train wreck with this group of guys. I thought he was joking at first, it just came out of left field.”

Busch heads into Sunday’s race in his hometown of Las Vegas as the Sprint Cup points leader. He’s got a pair of top-five finishes for Toyota, which scored only two of them all of last year.

Stewart, who nearly won the Daytona 500, sits third in the series standings and is just 19 points behind Busch. He won the first two Nationwide Series races of the year for JGR & currently leads Busch by 30 points in those standings.

Denny Hamlin gave Toyota its first victory in the Cup Series by winning one of the non-points qualifying races before the Daytona 500. Bad luck through the first two races has him mired back in 31st in the standings, but no one expects him to stay there for long.

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